Iceberg and Crispy Onion Salad (GFCF)

With spring comes salads and – let me say – I love salads. This particular salad comes from Donna Hay’s Seasons, which is organized by seasons and furthermore broken down into sweet and savoury. It was one of the first recipes that jumped out at me and that I bookmarked for future reference, although I only made it now. It doesn’t disappoint.

This is a slightly more humble presentation – it’s originally assembled in a manner that stacks the iceberg lettuce rounds and onion rings, topped with a poached egg. I wasn’t too sure how to eat that (with a knife and fork?) so this way I think is a little more approachable. No need to be wondering how to go about eating something so simple as salad.

The onion rings are dredged in rice flour and fried – but not deep fried – until golden. Now, the onion rings shown in the final photos are a bit darker than golden but you get the picture. Anyhow, the onion rings provide a great additional crunch with the lettuce and the poached egg rounds off the flavours beautifully.

It’s a wonderful salad for spring weather and would be great for an Easter brunch.

Iceberg and Crispy Onion Salad
From Seasons by Donna Hay

Now, I did not have the book Seasons with me when I set out to make this salad – I’d returned it to the library already and had forgotten to write out the recipe. Thankfully, it’s fairly straightforward and I had a good idea of the recipe, as I remembered it. Thus this may be an exact replicate or might diverge a bit from the original written recipe. This recipe is naturally gluten-free, as the one originally written uses rice flour.

The instructions are written to serve one, but increase the amount as needed.

1 head iceberg lettuce (you won’t need all of it)
1 onion (I used white onion, but original recipe calls for brown onion; use what you have)
1 to 2 tbsp. rice flour (I used brown rice flour)
Oil, for frying (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1 poached egg (see here for instructions on how to poach eggs)
Salt and pepper

Slice some of the iceberg lettuce into rounds and tear into bite-sized pieces on to a serving plate. (Put the rest of the lettuce head away.)

Heat a glug or two of oil in a fry pan over medium heat.

Next, cut off the ends of the onion and peel. Slice onions into rings. Dredge the onion rings in the rice flour. When the pan’s hot, put in the onion rings and fry in the oil until golden and crispy. Remove from the pan and place the onion rings on paper towel, to soak up any excess oil.

Hi Zoe, my hubby dearest does not eat eggs… Any ideas on what I could replace it with?? I make onion pakoras (like tempura, but with “besan” which is gram flour, gluten free btw..) I wouldn’t have thought of crisping the onions up and adding them to a salad. Nicely done! 🙂

Hi Sonia, I’m a bit stumped right now about what to replace the poached egg with – despite the feeling that it’s most likely dangling right in front of me – maybe you could change this into a pasta salad with the onion rings and whatever else you or your husband likes?

I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of trying onion pakoras, is there a recipe on your site?